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Re: a technique for options

  • To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
  • Subject: [mg71635] Re: a technique for options
  • From: dh <dh at metrohm.ch>
  • Date: Sat, 25 Nov 2006 05:37:16 -0500 (EST)
  • References: <ek63ac$8sb$1@smc.vnet.net>

Hi Chris,
there seems to be an misunderstanding. The technique in the book works 
well, if you feed it the requested input. If the input is wrong, it 
obvioulsy does not work.
Consider ____, this means zero or more arguments. If it is used as 
explained in the book, it means zero or more Rules and not "list of rules".
Unfortunately OptionQ gives True if you feed it a rule or a list of 
rules, leading to the error message you saw. Therefore, to check if you 
really have rules, you could e.g. use opts___?(Head[#]==Rule&)
Daniel

Chris Chiasson wrote:
> I noticed this a few months ago, but I am just getting around to
> programming this way, and I'd like to share it with you:
> 
> OptionQ evaluates to True for an option or a list of options. A lot of
> built in functions can handle their options given as lists:
> 
> Plot[x,{x,0,1},{PlotStyle->Blue}]
> 
> However, users (myself included), seem to be writing code that ignores
> this aspect of option handling. I blame this ( like all my other
> Mathematica failings :-] ) squarely on the documentation, specifically
> section 2.3.10.
> 
> BTW, I just noticed that OptionQ, like StringQ, does not have a help
> browser entry.
> 
> Here is an example from that section on writing functions that take options:
> 
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> f[x_, opts___] := value
> a typical definition for a function with zero or more named optional arguments
> name/.{opts}/.Options[f]
> replacements used to get the value of a named optional argument in the
> body of the function
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> There are two things "wrong" with the example. The first, and
> non-serious, problem is that the named pattern opts isn't checked with
> OptionQ. The second, and more serious, problem is that the result of
> name/.{opts}/.Options[f] will likely be different if the user feeds an
> option list to the function instead of the expected option sequence.
> 
> People may feel that it is a waste of time to support such a calling
> convention, but it is actually rather easy to do robustly, AFAIK.
> 
> The technique involves the exploitation of Flatten (and the fact that
> rules aren't lists)... Here is an example:
> 
> Options[f]={Precision->40};
> f[x_,callOpts___?OptionQ]:=
>   With[{opts=Flatten[{callOpts,Options[f]}]},N[x,Precision/.opts]]
> 
> f[5]
> f[5,Precision->10]
> f[5,{Precision->20}]
> 
> 5.000000000000000000000000000000000000000
> 
> 5.000000000
> 
> 5.0000000000000000000
> 
> Here is what would happen on the last call if the user chose the
> technique in the Mathematica Book:
> 
> System`Dump`$MessagesInHelpBrowserAreKnown=False;
> N[5,Precision/.{{Precision->20}}/.Options@f]
> 
> N::arg: Argument {20} is not of the form {precision, accuracy}.
> 
> N[5,{20}]
> 


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